It’s not at all rare that some things are lost in translation when Zelda games are localized into English from their original Japanese. Sometimes characters will change names or dialogue, but translators usually do their best to maintain the integrity of the character. However, this job is much easier said than done. Certain things like jokes and portmanteaus can be incredibly hard to translate, as there simply isn’t a proper translation. One such instance of this difficulty of translation appears in the dialogue of none other than the monarch of Zora’s Domain in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom: King Dorephan.
As you might know, the Zora people from Ocarina of Time worshipped Lord Jabu-Jabu. A giant fish that looked over Zora’s Domain, Lord Jabu-Jabu was a guardian deity to the Zora people and played a major role in the story of Ocarina of Time. Lord Jabu-Jabu has been referenced in other Zelda titles with characters such as Jabun of The Wind Waker, which continues the tradition of deeply associating large fish with the Zora people. King Dorephan of Breath of the Wild holds a much less divine role to the Zora people, as he is a king and not a god, but as a leader of the Zora people and a large whale-like being himself, he does invoke the memory of Lord Jabu-Jabu. The developers realized this, and thought to give him the special trait of laughing in a way that references that old fish from Ocarina of Time.
That’s right, in the Japanese version of Breath of the Wild, King Dorephan’s laugh itself references Lord Jabu-Jabu! However, if you have only played the English version of Breath of the Wild, this might be new information to you as the English translation does not include this laugh at all and this specific text box and its associated laugh sound effect from King Dorephan is nowhere to be seen in this conversation with the King at all. It seems the English localization of Dorephan was adjusted slightly to appear more stoic while talking about the grim fate of his Domain, whilst the Japanese version seems to carry a sense of joy even in dark times.
When I first learned about King Dorephan’s unique laugh from the Japanese version that we never got, I was quite sad, as I love these kinds of goofy character traits and I felt we missed out on a part of this great character. That being said, I do completely understand why the decision was made. The laugh itself would have been awkward to properly translate as the joke itself is somewhat reliant on the way that Japanese text is read. It’s also possible the English localization team simply felt the need to adjust King Dorephan’s personality for a different culture, which would also be very understandable. In any case, I’m glad to have found out about this quirk of the King, and I hope to someday experience the Japanese games myself so I can see just how different they are.
